Racing against the Autumn rains this year Jim runs into several hiccups with the backhoe.

July 24th the Main Cylinder for the boom blew a seal and needed to be rebuilt.Sept 7th the Hydraulic hose on that cylinder blows.Sept 16th the front tires will not hold air (Original tires dry rot) They both need to be replaced with tubes.Sept 24th the battery dies.

We had to rethink our timeline goals.The pond will not be completed this year!

Breaking the dam to start draining the existing pond a couple of feet at a time:

While waiting for the overflow stream to dry Jim works on removing stumps .

It is hard to visualize this pile of stumps and rocks but it is approximately 9 ft tall He will cover this mess with the fill from the hole for the new section of the pond.

Now that a lane way was completed Jim starts on the stilt catch pond.

This stilt catch pond is about 5 ft to 6 ft deep and will help filter the spring runoff from snow melt.

There is a small spring in this area so it needed to be pumped out each morning during the dig.We bought a pump from Harbor freight.

This sort of project has been on my " would love to do" list for most of my adult life, but I doubt that I will ever have the chance, so I will watch this thread closely. That backhoe is going to get more than a few hours on it for your project! Do you have a dump trailer or truck to help move the dirt or is the backhoe doing it all?

The west and north banks are at 10 ft deep, not as deep as the original pond but it will be deep enough for fish to survive the winter.

The pond has been lowered about 3 ft in this picture.

and is starting to trickle into the new section...... ahead of schedule:

We are expecting potentially a lot of rain from the hurricane that is coming up the coast this week if we don't get the rains Jim should be able to finish the east bank. If we do get it then we will be done for the year.

Thanks Tutti! This project is so outside our comfort zone, It is a learning as we go sort of project.

GopherBroke the backhoe is doing the digging and hauling,We have been looking for a dump truck just haven't found one that we like within our budget.

The "yuk" on the bottom from 46 years of build up is going to be soupy and the edges full of weeds all need to be removed.We will definately have a truck for that work.

Our goal is to get some of the pond back to its originally depths of 12 ft - 16 ft.increase the perimeter by reclaiming all of its banks.

Maggie13.............. I looked up your member profile. You must have made a mistake because when it states your age its wrong. The reason I say this is nobody at that age would start a project of that size at that age. All kidding aside youall are doing a great job. Hope it works out to your wishing.

Pete There is no doubt in my mind this is going to take us a lot longer to complete than someone that does this for a living and with only a vague sketch of what we want the final pond to look like we shall see how close it comes.Besides we already have a business that pays the bills and keeps a roof over our heads. We build custom cabinetry when not playing around on our property projects.

Did you put an overflow pipe around the dam end of the pond or how are planning on handling the spring overflow of your pond? It looks great so far and I know a lot of time, money and effort has gone into this project.

Also will you stock fish into the pond once completed? We stocked ours several years ago and the few kids around here enjoy catching fish in it. A pond can provide a lot of recreation. Great job!!

The dam is temporary. We didn't want to totally drain the pond We have too many critters that call it their home.

This WAS the over flow on the downside of the old dam.

Once we have finished cleaning up and deepening the pond our plan is to create a small channel in the dam rather than a pipe for overflow ( we will use a bridge to cross over ) That way we can create a waterfalls dropping into a small pool before meandering gradually down the 900 ft to the Creek below.